Auto belay accident Netherlands: material failure as likely cause

What happened?
A few weeks ago, a climber in the Netherlands was pretty badly injured when the webbing (!) of an auto belay apparently snapped, causing them to fall from approximately 8 meters.

Sources
These are the prime sources for the part about it being a problem with the webbing (it was also covered in national media, though pretty briefly):

1. News article: Mountain Network - Ongeval Klimhal Arnhem - (Dutch)

2. Instagram post from the climbing center Mountain Network Arnhem - (Dutch)

“De toedracht van het ongeval is een breuk in de zekerband (de verbinding waar de klimmer met de klimgordel aan hangt) van de autobelay.”

(Rough translation: “The accident was caused by a break in the webbing in the safety chain. An investigation is ongoing.”)

3. Confirmation from several people within the climbing center’s organization that it was indeed an issue with the webbing.

I’ve heard of auto belay incidents before, but those were mostly due to climber error as far as I know. This case is particularly unsettling since it appears to be material failure.

I hesitated to share this because the cause is unknown at the moment, but in the end I decided as a user of an auto belay I'd want to know if something like this happened. You might want to pay extra attention to the webbing in your climbing center for example. As the cause is unknown I don't know how helpful that could be, but in the slight chance it might prevent further accidents it won't do any harm to visually inspect the webbing right?

Wishing the injured climber a speedy recovery, and hoping everyone involved is doing as well as possible. And hopefully this is a one-off!

I’ll update this thread when more details from the investigation emerge.

[Edit] To be clear: there are no clues the break was caused by rubbing over something. Not saying it isn't a possibility, but looking at photo's of the wall and the fact multiple persons of the climbing company mentioned nothing like that and where also baffled it seems very unlikely [/end edit]

A similar incident happened in Bend a year or two ago.  The webbing snapped and dropped the climber. (injured, but I don't think permanently?) At the time there was speculation that it had abraded running over a lip, (the first 10' starts clearing a horizontal roof) but the gym staff inspect the autobelays regularly.  I never heard a definitive conclusion after the fact.

Max Tepfer wrote:

A similar incident happened in Bend a year or two ago.  The webbing snapped and dropped the climber. (injured, but I don't think permanently?) At the time there was speculation that it had abraded running over a lip, (the first 10' starts clearing a horizontal roof) but the gym staff inspect the autobelays regularly.  I never heard a definitive conclusion after the fact.

I remember seeing a video of an accident where you could see the webbing continuously being rubbed over a protruding point on the wall. I'm not sure if it was the same accident, but scary nonetheless...

I haven't personally been to the involved climbing center here in the Netherlands, but what I saw on photos from the website the walls looked flat with no overhang, roofs or other stuff.

Max Tepfer wrote:

A similar incident happened in Bend a year or two ago.  The webbing snapped and dropped the climber. (injured, but I don't think permanently?) At the time there was speculation that it had abraded running over a lip, (the first 10' starts clearing a horizontal roof) but the gym staff inspect the autobelays regularly.  I never heard a definitive conclusion after the fact.

Happened 1-2 days after new route setting and the webbing was abrading over a rough textured hold at the lip (transition from overhang to slab), the wear happened too fast to be caught by inspection

I’m having a hard time thinking of any autobelay I have seen that allows the webbing to run over holds on the wall. From what I’ve seen in the 20-30 gyms I have visited is that the autobelays are not typically mounted on the same plane as the wall below—instead, they are mounted out away from the wall a very short distance such that the webbing never touches the wall. Is there an industry standard in this regard? Maybe I just haven’t seen enough gyms to have come across this issue.

So sorry for the climber and hope she/he recovers quickly and completely. 

Daniel Joder wrote:

I’m having a hard time thinking of any autobelay I have seen that allows the webbing to run over holds on the wall. From what I’ve seen in the 20-30 gyms I have visited is that the autobelays are not typically mounted on the same plane as the wall below—instead, they are mounted out away from the wall a very short distance such that the webbing never touches the wall. Is there an industry standard in this regard? Maybe I just haven’t seen enough gyms to have come across this issue.

So sorry o the climber and hope she/he recovers quickly and completely. 

As far as I know it was a straight wall, and the gyms I've been to in the Netherlands with auto belays have the belays mounted away from the wall as you said. Also, the people I spoke with would have mentioned something like that as a possibility (and the photo's of the wall seem straight as well)

Another thing I have a question about… the webbing in autobelays seems extra burley, so in my mind it would take a lot to wear through it. I certainly could be wrong, just wondering aloud. I don’t know much about autobelay construction, but is it possible for the tape to detach from the mechanism?
Maybe it was HowNot2 who tore apart a couple of autobelays? Can’t remember. That could be a video worth reviewing to look at possible failure modes. (Maybe someone younger and with a better memory can find the video and post???)

Anyway, we (meaning “me”) are probably doing too much speculation at this point. I’ll be very interested to see a more comprehensive accident report as I use autobelays a lot. 

Daniel Joder wrote:

Another thing I have a question about… the webbing in autobelays seems extra burley, so in my mind it would take a lot to wear through it. I certainly could be wrong, just wondering aloud. I don’t know much about autobelay construction, but is it possible for the tape to detach from the mechanism?
Maybe it was HowNot2 who tore apart a couple of autobelays? Can’t remember. That could be a video worth reviewing to look at possible failure modes. (Maybe someone younger and with a better memory can find the video and post???)

Anyway, we (meaning “me”) are probably doing too much speculation at this point. I’ll be very interested to see a more comprehensive accident report as I use autobelays a lot. 

I'll look for the HowNot2 video when I have time. I am also baffled about this, and want to know more about the cause(s).

I certainly will update this thread when there is more news. In the meantime you could consider downclimbing when using auto belays as a precaution

Found it. The video is called “When does an autobelay explode?”  On YouTube by HowNot2. I can’t figure out how to link it using my phone.
The punishment these devices took before coming apart was impressive. 

Daniel Joder wrote:

Found it. The video is called “When does an autobelay explode?”  On YouTube by HowNot2. I can’t figure out how to link it using my phone.
The punishment these devices took before coming apart was impressive. 

I have seen the video you mentioned! Pretty solid... Youtubelink: "When does an autobelay explode?"

I saw a similar failure happen at the Edge in Melbourne FL. They have Auto-belays set up over an edge that constantly abrades them when a climber is going up under the roof before a slab. They set up a big dino right in the worst spot, a heavy climber jumped and it snapped the webbing. Thankfully, they were able to walk away as it was low enough and they have thick mats even in their rope area. It was clearly a material abrasion issue and did not look like what a new webbing looks like when over strained. Setting up an auto-belay in this way should be against manufacture recommendations, I don't know if it is though.

I will never climb on an auto belay I see rubbing like that. With ropes we get away with it because it's only under tension when lowering, but honestly we should always be wary of soft goods rubbing on something while under tension.

See beta climbs soft vs hard catch video when the rope is over an edge.

In a gym near The Woodlands, TX, autobelay webbing got caught between the sharpe edge of a hold and the wall where there was a gap. I'm sure we have all felt little sharp gaps like this before. Climber didn't notice and climbed a bit, when they fell the webbing broke. This was probably close to 10 years ago now.

The trend towards bigger holds and volumes ensures more irregular wear and tear on webbing including quickdraws and autobelay tethers. If the holds/volumes are textured the effects are even worse. Another factor is the tether getting snagged behind a jug, or worse, jamming in a small gap between a hold and the wall. The former usually releases easily, the later can get properly stuck, or worse as in the comment above. Setters need to be very cautious about how holds and autobelays interact. The law of gravity is strictly enforced but so is Murphy's Law.

To reiterate something I mentioned above and to form it into a question: Do people climb in gyms where the autobelay mechanism is mounted such that the tape rubs across the wall, edges, holds, or volumes? I personally have never seen that--but then I have yet to visit every gym in the world. If you do see that in your gym I would definitely point it out to the staff. 

The standard seems to be to have them mounted so that the tape never touches anything. See below...

See Para. 4.1.3:  Perfect Descent Autobelay Manual

See pages 14,18,20: TruBlue Autobelay Manual

The standoff helps, but it can't completely eliminate the possibility of the webbing touching things when there is a human element moving the webbing around as they climb.

Also the copyrights for those docs are 2019 and 2020. They have undoubtedly been revised many times.

JJ Marcus wrote:

You can clearly see this image from the edge in Melbourne the poor autobelay placement.

Wow, that is.... Unsettling

Yeah, not good. As Desert Rock Sports mentioned, when a person falls on autobelay and flails around a bit, the tape could indeed briefly touch the wall, holds, or volumes…. But this example seems to be deliberately set up to run over that edge. 

Ignorance is not always bliss.

I am forewarned.